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A
leading children's charity has accused the
government of breaching international law by locking
up an increasing number of young asylum seekers
unnecessarily and arbitrarily.
In a damning report to be published tomorrow, Save
the Children reveals a catalogue of mental and
physical health problems suffered by children held
in UK detention centres.
It also accuses the government of flouting its own
guidelines as well as international legislation
designed to protect the rights of young people. The
report was commissioned following widespread anger
in Scotland at the long detention in Dungavel of a
family of Kurdish asylum seekers.
The four Ay children, then aged between eight and
14, and their mother were locked into a unit at the
former prison for 22 hours a day for more than a
year.
The report prompted calls last night for urgent
action to end the long-term detention of families,
with campaigners calling for a statutory maximum
time limit of seven days.
There were also fresh demands for the government to
publish statistics regularly about the number of
children detained and the length of time they are
held.
With asylum and immigration firmly at the heart of
the forthcoming general election campaign, the
charity said young asylum seekers were increasingly
being locked up because they were an 'easy target'
and because it was administratively convenient for
the government. The consequences, they said, were
alarming.
They found evidence that women with young babies had
only restricted access to nappies and baby milk. A
common complaint among young children, they said,
was weight loss, mouth infections and a general
'failure to thrive'.
Children who had been detained for longer periods,
particularly those in excess of 100 days, suffered
from skin complaints and persistent respiratory
conditions. As well as the impact of physical
health, the report raised concerns about the
significant mental health problems. Sleeping and
eating difficulties, depression, stress and anxiety
were commonplace.
In one case, a boy of 17, held for more than eight
months, said he became seriously depressed after
another detainee committed suicide. He tried to
contact emergency services, but claimed their number
had been barred on the phone.
Mike Aaronson, director general of Save the Children
UK, described the findings in the report as
disturbing and said there was a substantial gap
between the stated policy of detaining children as a
'last resort' and the reality of current practice
which sees them detained unnecessarily. 'Detention
is no place for a child,' he added. 'It can be
hugely detrimental to their well-being and can have
long-lasting negative effects.
'The report presents a number of viable alternatives
to detention, some of which have been seen to work
suc cessfully in practice. We are calling on the
government to consider the alternatives, and adopt
them as soon as possible to make the detention of
refugee children a thing of the past.'
Campaign groups condemned the rise in the use of
detention and the lack of safeguards to protect
children.
Sarah Cutler, chair of the Refugee Children's
Consortium and a policy officer with Bail for
Immigration Detainees, said despite increasing
evidence that detention damaged the physical and
emotional health of children, the government had
ignored repeated demands to put children's rights
first.
'It is extremely worrying that despite assurances
from the government, children are still being
detained for long periods and in increasing
numbers.'
A Home Office spokeswoman said last night that the
report would be considered carefully before a full
response was made. 'Detention of families is kept to
a minimum and is subject to frequent and rigorous
review. Very few families are detained for more than
just a few days,' she added.
'Why does your government treat us like
criminals?'
'This is no place for children. We cannot go to
school. We cannot see the trees, only metal fences.
We are not criminals, so why does your government
treat us like criminals?'
Beriwan Ay asked this many times during the year and
19 days that she and her family were locked up at
Dungavel detention centre, a former prison, in South
Lanarkshire. Her crime was to be the child of an
asylum seeker. Her punishment was to be locked in a
family unit for 22 hours a day while her mother
appealed against a Home Office decision to deport
them.
The plight of the family - Beriwan, then 14, her
sisters, Newroz, 13, and Medya, eight, her brother,
Dilovan, 12, and their mother, Yurdugal - provoked
outrage in Scotland. Church and union leaders,
cross-party politicians and human rights
organisations, even the government's own chief
inspector of prisons, condemned their record
detention.
But pleas for them to be granted bail fell on deaf
ears at the Home Office. In August 2003, they lost
their fight to remain in the UK and were deported to
Germany where, like most Kurds from Turkey, their
previous asylum application had been rejected.
However, in November last year, a German court
granted them leave to remain. The reason given was a
humanitarian one, based on the psychological trauma
inflicted on the children while in detention in
Britain.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk
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